Digital Commons Network^™

Does The Trend Need A Mend? The Effects Of Herding Behavior On The Returns To Higher Edcuation, Amy K. French

Senior Independent Study Theses

Using the human capital model, supplemented by a preference framework focusing on utility maximization, this paper examines the decision making process of the individual when considering enrollment in higher education. The study applies a theory of herding behavior to the investment decision, arguing that individuals use the decisions of others who have gone before them as signals to reduce information costs and to aid in their own decision making process. The paper further discusses the possibility of this behavior leading to irrational investment decisions. Herding behavior will likely lead to an increase in the supply of highly educated workers, perhaps …

Dueling For Their Votes: A Study On The Impact Of Presidential Debate Rhetoric On Public Opinion, Daniel J. Cohen

Senior Independent Study Theses

The debates are key events for presidential candidates to influence public support for their policies. This study examines the impact of rhetorical strategies during presidential debates on public perceptions of unpopular issue stances. Using generic criticism, I examined the first two 2012 debates between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney and uncovered four rhetorical strategies used by the candidates: issue framing, appeals to authority, use of rebuttals, and appealing to liberal and conservative presumptions. I then tested an example of issue framing from each candidate to determine its effectiveness in persuading public opinion on unpopular issue stances. My results showed that …

How Does Focus On Form Affect The Revising Processes Of Esl Writers?: Two Case Studies, Eun-Young Julia Kim

Faculty Publications

This study considers the ongoing “grammar correction debate” in second language writing by examining how a focus on formal accuracy would affect the revising processes of ESL writers and the students’ written products. A case study approach was used to find out how two ESL students would respond in the two different rewriting situations: (a) when there is no explicit expectation for them to produce grammatically correct text, and (b) when this expectation was clearly present. The protocol analysis and interviews with the participants showed that students’ revision processes had not been affected by the kind of instruction and expectation …

Norms And Varieties Of English And Tesol Teacher Agency, M. Obaidul Hamid, Lingyan Zhu, Richard B. Baldauf Jr.

Australian Journal of Teacher Education

The growing recognition of the plurality of English underling the World Englishes (WE) paradigm has problematised the conventional second language acquisition (SLA) views of errors. If English use in emerging English-speaking contexts is to be judged by local norms, as argued by WE scholars, applying exocentric norms in these contexts can be inappropriate. On the other hand, despite the significant growth of WE, varieties of new Englishes have yet to develop widely acceptable endocentric norms. These developments have raised a critical question: How can TESOL teachers distinguish between errors in the SLA sense and varietal features in the WE sense? …

Teaching Practice In Cameroon: The Effectiveness Of The University Of Buea Model And Implications For Quality, Margaret Nalova Endeley

Australian Journal of Teacher Education

The paper aimed at assessing the effectiveness of the teaching practice model in the University of Buea, which is different from that of other teacher education institutions in Cameroon. Teaching Practice is an important component of a teacher education programme and the quality of supervision and duration are key in achieving effectiveness which is an indicator of the quality of teachers being trained. The study was a descriptive survey that made use of a 22-item closed ended questionnaire with indicators of effectiveness as competencies acquired, supervision and duration of teaching practice, obtained from a review of literature. The questionnaire was …

The Literacy Skills Of Secondary Teaching Undergraduates: Results Of Diagnostic Testing And A Discussion Of Findings, Brian Moon

Australian Journal of Teacher Education

Abstract: The capacity of secondary school teachers to support general literacy and to teach discipline-specific literacy skills depends upon their personal literacy competence. Diagnostic testing of 203 secondary teaching undergraduates at one Australian university revealed deficiencies in personal literacy competence that could affect their future teaching effectiveness. The sample of undergraduates was tested in spelling, vocabulary, and punctuation. Analysis of the results showed high rates of error on general spelling and vocabulary tasks. The degree of error in many cases was severe. For some undergraduates, the prospect of successful remediation so late in their academic career appeared poor. It is …

The Approaches To Teaching Inventory: A Preliminary Validation Of The Malaysian Translation, Pauline Swee Choo Goh, Kung Teck Wong, Mohd Sahandri Gani Hamzah

Australian Journal of Teacher Education

The purpose of this study was to evaluate a Malaysian translation of the 22-item Approaches to Teaching Inventory for application in higher education. The Approaches to Teaching Inventory was a quantitative measure used by teachers of higher education to gauge their own teaching approaches that had been psychometrically assessed and widely used in western universities. Data in the present study came from 172 teachers in two institutions of higher learning. Principal factor analyses with varimax rotation and confirmatory factor analyses support a model with 17 items categorized into five sub-factors that were subsumed within two main factors. The alpha values …

A Cognitive Analysis Of Students' Activity: An Example In Mathematics, Jean-Francois Hérold

Australian Journal of Teacher Education

In this paper, we argue for an engagement of productive connections between research findings and teaching, this since the vocational training of the teachers. We exemplify how analyses of written tests by using a cognitive approach lead to better interpretations and understanding of the learner’s knowledge. We show how a teacher can do it and we discuss the possibility of introducing it to the available scientific knowledge in teacher education, in order to include it in the current practices of teachers’ methods.

Valuing Assessment In Teacher Education - Multiple-Choice Competency Testing, Dona L. Martin, Diane Itter

Australian Journal of Teacher Education

When our focus is on assessment educators should work to value the nature of assessment. This paper presents a new approach to multiple-choice competency testing in mathematics education. The instrument discussed here reflects student competence, encourages self-regulatory learning behaviours and links content with current curriculum documents and with collaborative and cooperative learning episodes.

Are They Genuinely Novice Teachers? - Motivations And Self-Efficacy Of Those Who Choose Teaching As A Second Career, Tili Wagner, Dalia Imanuel-Noy

Australian Journal of Teacher Education

The research is based on the trend of broadening unique teacher training programs. It is a mixed-method research aiming to explore the motives of three groups of Graduate-Retraining-Program (GRP) who opted for teaching as a second career and their self-efficacy

The research population comprises 82 participants from three specialized teacher's education programs. Tools include a closed self-efficacy and a semi-structured motivation questionnaires and interviews.

Findings: motives relate mostly to psycho-ideological aspects; three efficacy dimensions relating to Teaching Tasks (TT), Teacher-Student Relations (TSR), and Influence in the Organization (IO); The TT dimension is the highest, while the IO dimension is the …

Title: How Do Preservice Teacher Education Students Move From Novice To Expert Assessors?, Peter R. Grainger, Lenore Adie

Australian Journal of Teacher Education

Despite the acknowledged importance of assessment in education, there has been minimal research into the preparation of preservice teachers for the important role of involving preservice teachers in marking, grading, moderating and providing feedback on student work. This article reports on a pilot project in which preservice teachers participated in an ongoing peer assessment and social moderation process in a dedicated course on assessment. The purpose of the project was to investigate specific ways in which key assessment processes can be effectively taught to preservice teachers. The research involved 96 preservice teachers who completed a Likert scale survey and free …

Mathematics, English And Gender Issues: Do Teachers Count?, Gilah C. Leder, Helen J. Forgasz, Glenda Jackson

Australian Journal of Teacher Education

Pedestrians were stopped in the street and asked about their views on the teaching and learning of mathematics and English for boys and girls. Many commented on the importance of teachers for both subject areas; some respondents self-identified as teachers. In this article we present findings on the gendering of mathematics and English and the impact that teachers can have on learning outcomes in these disciplines. The data reveal that mathematics is endorsed by many as a male domain and English as a female domain, and that teachers play an influential part in the learning outcomes – achievement, future participation, …

Teacher Revoicing In A Foreign Language Teaching Context: Social And Academic Functions, Banu Inan

Australian Journal of Teacher Education

The aim of this study is to investigate the occurrences of teacher revoicing as a discursive move in English Language Teaching (ELT) literature classes, and to identify its social and academic functions. Teacher revoicing refers to the restatement or incorporation of previous student comments into subsequent teacher statements and/or questions to build an extended discourse based on student contribution. The analysis of more than 25 hours of data of recorded classroom conversation in a university level literature class has demonstrated that teacher revoicing is a very common teacher move in the college EFL literature classroom. Eight functions of teacher revoicing …

Investigating The Literacy, Numeracy And Ict Demands Of Primary Teacher Education, Helen De Silva Joyce, Susan Feez, Eveline Chan, Stephen Tobias

Australian Journal of Teacher Education

The pre-service programs delivered in Australian teacher education institutions are expected to graduate students who meet externally determined standards, including standards in literacy, numeracy and information and communication technology. These programs are also expected to educate future teachers in professional knowledge and practice, as well as prepare them to engage in professional learning continuously throughout their careers. This paper reports on the first phase of a project that investigated the literacy, numeracy and ICT demands of assessment tasks across the four years of the Bachelor of Education (Primary) program at a regional university.

Automated Evaluation Of Approximate Matching Algorithms On Real Data, Frank Breitinger, Vassil Roussev

Electrical & Computer Engineering and Computer Science Faculty Publications

Bytewise approximate matching is a relatively new area within digital forensics, but its importance is growing quickly as practitioners are looking for fast methods to screen and analyze the increasing amounts of data in forensic investigations. The essential idea is to complement the use of cryptographic hash functions to detect data objects with bytewise identical representation with the capability to find objects with bytewise similarrepresentations.

Unlike cryptographic hash functions, which have been studied and tested for a long time, approximate matching ones are still in their early development stages and evaluation methodology is still evolving. Broadly, prior approaches have …

Video Modeling : Play Skills For Students With Autism Spectrum Disorder Via Peers, Ashley Ulin

Graduate Research Papers

The purpose of this small-scale inquiry project was to investigate the effects of peer modeling and video modeling as an instructional support for the development of social skills amongst the population of kindergarten students with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) in an inclusive setting. The participants in this project were seven Kindergarten students with ASD, and four regular education students in an inclusive setting. The teachers were three general education teachers as well as myself, the teacher of the modified autism program. The data collection included teacher observations, email communication, and video created by teachers and teaching assistants. This study proposes …

A Role For Law In Preparing For Death, Barbara A. Noah

Faculty Scholarship

This Article discusses the limits of how end of life law can address threats to patient autonomy. The reluctance of physicians, patients and family to discuss end of life matters and to confront the certainty of death, together with a culture that actively denies the aging process itself, interferes with a patient’s ability to exercise choice as death approaches. Thus, patients often suffer needlessly from the continuation of treatments and life-supportive measures that they would choose to decline if better informed about their choices and the importance of choosing. Advance directives, as a legal mechanism, often fail fully to protect …

Air Travel And The No Fly List - The District Of Oregon Recognizes A Constitutional Right To Fly, Emily Leezer Landeros

Journal of Air Law and Commerce

No abstract provided.

Regulation Of Air Traffic - The D.C. Circuit Holds That The Faa Has Statutory Authority To Alter Flight Routes To Mitigate The Impact Of Aircraft Noise On Residential Areas, Huy Ly

Journal of Air Law and Commerce

No abstract provided.

Relaxing Restrictions On Cuba: More Air Travel Now Than Before, Jennifer Smiley

Journal of Air Law and Commerce

No abstract provided.

Applying The Discretionary Function Exception To The Waiver Of Sovereign Immunity In Airport Litigation, James L. Cresswell

Journal of Air Law and Commerce

No abstract provided.

Teacher Evaluation: Accessing Evaluation Instruments And Processes For Evaluating, Justin Post

Graduate Research Papers

The purpose of this review of literature is to investigate instruments and practices used in evaluations of teachers and give research based recommendations advise towards the utilization of these instruments and processes.

Ay 2013/2014 Fs Meeting Minutes, 2014-03-19, Faculty Senate

Faculty Senate Archives

No abstract provided.

Calcite Dissolution Under Turbulent Flow Conditions: A Remaining Conundrum, Matthew D. Covington

Geosciences Faculty Publications and Presentations

A significant body of experimental and theoretical work has examined the dissolution rates of calcite, and other carbonate minerals, under varying chemical and hydrodynamic conditions (see Morse & Arvidson (2002) for a comprehensive review). The relationships derived from this work have been applied extensively to the development of mechanistic models of speleogenesis (e.g. Dreybrodt 1996; Dreybrodt et al. 2005; Birk et al. 2005; Rehrl et al. 2008; Kaufmann 2009; Szymczak & Ladd 2011). However, the primary focus of these models has been on the early stages of cave formation, with less attention toward the later stages of cave evolution and …

A Full Greenhouse Gases Budget Of Africa: Synthesis, Uncertainties, And Vulnerabilities, R. Valentini, A. Arneth, A. Bombelli, S. Castaldi, R. Cazzolla Gatti, F. Chevallier, P. Ciais, E. Grieco, J. Hartmann, M. Henry, R. A. Houghton, M. Jung, W. L. Kutsch, Y. Malhi, E. Mayorga, L. Merbold, G. Murray-Tortarolo, D. Papale, P. Peylin, B. Poulter, P. A. Raymond, M. Santini, S. Sitch, G. Vaglio Laurin, G. R. Van Der Werf, Christopher A. Williams, R. J. Scholes

Geography

This paper, developed under the framework of the RECCAP initiative, aims at providing improved estimates of the carbon and GHG (CO2, CH4 and N2O) balance of continental Africa. The various components and processes of the African carbon and GHG budget are considered, existing data reviewed, and new data from different methodologies (inventories, ecosystem flux measurements, models, and atmospheric inversions) presented. Uncertainties are quantified and current gaps and weaknesses in knowledge and monitoring systems described in order to guide future requirements. The majority of results agree that Africa is a small sink of carbon on an annual scale, with an average …

Impacts Of Disturbance History On Forest Carbon Stocks And Fluxes: Merging Satellite Disturbance Mapping With Forest Inventory Data In A Carbon Cycle Model Framework, Christopher A. Williams, G. James Collatz, Jeffrey Masek, Chengquan Huang, Samuel N. Goward

Geography

Forest carbon stocks and fluxes are highly dynamic following stand-clearing disturbances from severe fire and harvest and this presents a significant challenge for continental carbon budget assessments. In this work we use forest inventory data to parameterize a carbon cycle model to represent post-disturbance carbon trajectories of carbon pools and fluxes for specific forest types growing in high and low site productivity class settings. We then apply these trajectories to landscapes and regions based on forest age distributions derived from either the FIA data or from Landsat time series stacks (1985-2006) for 54 representative scenes throughout most of the conterminous …

Quantum Optical Metrology, Sensing And Imaging, Kebei Jiang

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

In this dissertation we begin with a brief introduction to quantum optics concentrating on the topics of the noise of quantum optical states, quantum estimation theory, quantum interferometry and the atom-field interaction. This background is necessary for understanding the discussions in later chapters. In particular, quantum interferometry, which is optical interferometry when the light source is a quantum mechanical state, plays a central role in this dissertation. In Chapter 2 we discuss the phase estimation sensitivity of quantum metrology when photon loss is present. In Chapter 3 we extend the discussion to include the phase fluctuation of the system caused …

Multivariate Generalizability Of Writing Curriculum-Based Measurement (Cbm): An Examination Of Form, Occasion, And Scoring Method, Katherine Hunter Chenier

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Curriculum-based measurement (CBM) is an assessment technique that has become increasingly popular in schools, gaining importance with the recent national emphasis on school and teacher accountability for student achievement. CBM is used to monitor student performance to provide an indicator of which students are at-risk of not achieving grade level standards and thus are in need of intervention. CBM is easy to administer, utilizes standard procedures, and provides measures indicative of general achievement in various domains. The utility of CBM to measure student ability in writing has been well-established. However, there is a paucity of technical adequacy research for writing …

Presidential Profiles: Race, Leadership Orientation, And Effectiveness, Jerry M. Whitmore Jr.

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation study examined racial differences in leadership orientation and effectiveness at United States four year, public colleges and universities as self-perceived and as perceived by presidents, as a means to contribute to the literature on race leadership orientation and effectiveness. The quantitative study design is to determine significant relationships among University or College Presidents or Chancellors (UCPC) pertaining to their leadership frames and effectiveness using (Bolman and Deal 1991a, 1991b, 2003) four-frame leadership theory and Quinn (1988) competing values model. The study attempts to understand any distinct observations that may be present. This study will not be an attempt …

Observations Of Terrestrial Gamma Flashes With Tetra And Lago, Rebecca Ringuette

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Terrestrial Gamma ray Flashes (TGFs) -- very short, intense bursts of electrons, positrons, and energetic photons originating from terrestrial thunderstorms -- have been detected with satellite instruments. The TGF and Energetic Thunderstorm Rooftop Array (TETRA), an array of NaI(Tl) scintillators at Louisiana State University, has now been used to detect similar bursts of 50 keV to over 2 MeV gamma rays at ground level. After 3.3 years of observation, twenty-eight events with durations 0.02 - 4.2 msec have been detected associated with nearby lightning, three of them coincident events observed by detectors separated by ~1000 m. Nine of the events …